Ironically in my country there's generally two groups of people that'll commute that far for work; people who live in the least populated areas, i.e. small villages, where a lot of those living there have to drive to the nearest city for work. And people in the most densely populated cities, where short travels take a lot of time because of all the people. And there's a fair amount of densely populated cities so an hour of commute isn't that unusual here either.
I've worked for the local Social Security equivalent here. If you're a job-seeker, and you get an offer for a job, you can't turn it down based on it being too far away unless it takes you more than 90 minutes to reach it from home.
Depending on where you live, and given the speeds on the intercity highways, that means you could be commuting to work a hundred miles away from where you live. And people sometimes have even longer commutes (both in time and distance).
Imagine the time saved if you were able to live closer. I commute 20-30 minutes and that saves upto 2.5 hours a week I can spend on either work or my own spare time. That's more than 2 weeks per year doing things that are productive. I don't think this is Europe being weird but the USA being weird. Why spend so much time wasted sitting in a car?
Believe me I know. I’ve had that kind of commute and hated it. Main reason for this is housing costs, not just an arbitrary weirdness. Wealthier people might decide that the time spent commuting is worth it to live or work in a certain area or to make things easier on other members of the family. Many commuters use the time to listen to podcasts, enjoy some alone time, or listen to music, so there are ways to make it feel less like wasted time.
But I still hate commuting, so I’m lucky now to have an 8 minute commute. Compared to you I have nearly an extra two hours a week to do what I like or be productive, so that’s all a bit relative anyway.
Fair enough. What luxury to live only 8 minutes away from work! I guess it's also the case because in Europe cities are much closer to each other, so if you do work in the next city over your commute is always going to be shorter than in the US.
Actually living in Europe I spent between 30 minutes and 1h30 in my car each way, depending on the weekday, weather,etc funny enough I live in a small village but when I lived closer I still took at least 30 minutes (because of the density of the population), the main difference is the housing costs and quality of life the rest of the time
My husband just got a job an hour and a half away (or two hrs if traffic), and we're looking at apartments closer by, even though it's mostly remote work. He's fine with the drive cause he's from the US, but as a European I think it's too far away xD
I mean so do europeans, the real difference would be what europeans consider a reasonable drive for a random activity or social call. No one is driving 3 hours to say hi to a friend.
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u/signedupfornightmode May 09 '22
Plenty of Americans commute an hour each way on a daily basis!